Saturday, July 14, 2012

Last cat standing

When I first met my husband (long before we ever married), he admitted he wasn't a cat lover and I shrugged and said I could take them or leave them. Fast forward ten years and we were married, had four cats, a Newfoundland dog, and two kids under the age of five.

Each of our cats has its own unique story. Our dog found one in the bush, carried it home, and dropped it into my outstretched hand - a newborn kitten covered with blood. A lynx had killed the mother and four other kittens, but somehow this one survived. She looked like a coffee bean so we called her Java.

Another became ours 'by accident' after our daughter purchased it as a gift for someone who ultimately didn't want it. She was told the cat would be euthanized if it was returned it, tears were shed, she was leaving for Scotland to attend university, and so...we ended up with yet another cat. Our boys named her Roo.

The third one was a massive, silver-haired cat who looked perpetually stoned and probably should've been born in the 70s. My six-year-old son saw him in a cage in a mall with a sign announcing his imminent death within twenty-four hours if he wasn't adopted. We brought him home and called him Buzz.

This black one was our first cat. We got her when she was only days old. Someone had tried to drown a litter of kittens and then dumped them in a box at a landfill site, but she didn't die. We called her Brady.

The vet warned us she wouldn't live long (too tiny, hadn't had enough of her mother's milk, etc). Today, she's the last cat standing in our home. The rest are gone, passing away one by one over time. Yesterday, I took Brady to the vet to have them shave her flanks to remove hair lumps I couldn't get out with a brush. As you can see, she isn't impressed with her new *senior* look. We've had her 18 years, this cat we never planned for.